Small Business Marketing – Trends That Can’t Be Ignored

In our current market, changes are being seen everywhere and that includes in small business marketing. Small businesses realize that if they want to be truly competitive they must keep up with the trends and the main aspect of marketing that is getting a lot of attention is social media. Social media has completely changed the way that small businesses relate to their customers. It is becoming more and more obvious that small businesses need to adapt their marketing to become part of their customer’s lives instead of intruding on their lives.

Small Business Marketing is Meeting People Where They Gather

Once, marketing meant finding your way into people’s lives by intruding into their regular lives – while they were watching televisions, listening to the radio, or even the using the public washroom. It meant finding a way to get in front on them where they couldn’t get away. Marketing is changing, though!

Businesses are realizing that there are other ways to get their message in front of people without being intrusive. In order to do that though, businesses have to go where people gather. Today, that means getting involved in social sites. Sites like Twitter and Facebook were created to connect people – old friends, classmates, and family. Businesses have realized that they can interact with people on social sites in a way that is almost like the relationship between friends.

Sharing Information and Giving Advice

Businesses are doing more than just getting a message across on these sites. They are developing relationships with their customers. How? One of the main ways is by sharing information and giving advice. People who interact with businesses on these sites are doing so because the businesses involved have something to offer them.

Businesses are not selling things on social media – instead they are giving away what people really want. They are giving them ways to use their products more effectively, ways to make comparisons, and ways to make decisions. By doing this they are building relationships. By building relationships with customers and with potential customers they are increasing the trust factor, which goes much further than just selling a product.

Small business marketing is taking advantage of every tool at their fingertips and the trends are all pointing at social media. Social media enables businesses to build trust and trust lasts longer than any sales pitch that a company can make.